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Facts and Fiction

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed By Karen Elizabeth Gordon. Pantheon Books, 1984, 1993. Wild, wacky, inventive grammar guide continues to educate and amuse The opportunity to review the new edition (1993) of Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: …

I’d like to recommend two of my favourite books for writers, one ostensibly fiction and the other, not. Except that both are so idiosyncratic, so luminously zany, so full of revelatory insights, humour and poignancy, that generic boundaries seem to melt and what you take away from each is reaffirmation …

This is the first in our “Facts and Fiction” series of mini-book reviews. Each blog entry will briefly describe one non-fiction and one fiction title that might interest editors and other lovers of language. The Story of English By Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil and William Cran (third edition). Penguin, 2002. …

The biographies of skilled communicators often reveal a lifelong, serious reading habit. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I have read constantly and voraciously since the age of five, and I give that habit (addiction?) a lot of the credit for the writing and editing skills I have developed. …